Table 1 Roles and responsibilities of community-academic partnership in Gårdsten, Gothenburg, Sweden

The community-academic partnership

The “participants” and “residents” refer to people living and/or working in the area who chose to participate after having been invited.

“The community” refers to the neighborhood Gårdsten.

“We” refers to the research group (i.e. people paid by the University of Gothenburg or the Angered hospital for this purpose and/or academic researchers providing research expertise). The research group consisted of five researchers (the authors) and two health workers with interest in health promotion, nutrition and odontology. We are women of different ages and two have worked in Gårdsten for many years but no one has lived in Gårdsten.

Shared responsibilities

The research group:  The project was initiated and organized by researchers and health care workers. We took initiative with the project, designed the research plan, organized and coordinated meetings, provided food, hired intercultural mediators, clarified the roles and responsibilities within the project, introduced and explained the participatory method, set the purpose for initial discussion, tried to facilitate trust and equity, moderated discussions, facilitated networking with stakeholders, and documented the process and the outcomes with transparency.

The participants/residents: The content of the project was driven by the participants/residents. They decided to take part in the project, invited other participants, commented on the design, reflected, discussed, gave their views, negotiated, interpreted and brought together various ideas and suggestions, and took responsibility for initiating, organizing, developing and driving actions emerging from the project.

Together: Striving for open, honest and fair-minded communication.

Perspectives on power relations

We reflected as suggested by Wolf [30] and Muhammad and colleagues [31] on the effect that our positionalities had on the power relations in the decision-making, processes, knowledge creation, publication and representation of voice. Cautious preparations were made of what to say and suggest in order to promote a trustful cooperation and avoid stigmatization. The responsibilities of individuals and groups were discussed with the participants throughout the project and we made clear that the research group acted as facilitators, and that we did not have any resources to finance solution of problems on behalf of the community. We strived to play down our own voices and give the floor to the participants, and at the same time take full responsibility in facilitating constructive participation, reflections, negotiations and actions. We made clear that our area of expertise and interest were within dental health and nutrition but that our intention was to facilitate any discussion related to well-being and health.